Recovery from said surgery is expected to be 4-6 months, which could extend into the start of the 2014-15 campaign.

Pouliot, 20, recently wrapped another successful campaign with WHL Portland, winning the league’s defenseman of the year award on the strength of 70 points in the regular season and another 32 in the playoffs. He was likely to challenge for a spot on the Pens’ roster to open the ’14-15 campaign, especially given the uncertainty regarding the future of pending veteran UFAs Brooks Orpik, Matt Niskanen and Deryk Engelland.

So, it’ll be interesting how well Pouliot rehabilitates.

Should he recover within four months, he’ll be targeting a mid-September return and would be joining the club midway through the preseason. Should he go the full six months, Pouliot might not be with the Penguins until November, meaning he’d miss (at least) the first four weeks of the regular season.

Minnesota Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk has been the most difficult goalies to score against this season. Leave it to a high-level player like Leon Draisaitl to make it look this, well, “easy.”

Draisaitl scored his 13th goal of 2016-17 by capping this pretty give-and-go play with Benoit Pouliot. You can see the frustration from Dubnyk at the end of the tally, as if he was saying “How was I supposed to stop that?” (though probably with more colorful language).

Draisaitl came into Friday with five goals and three assists in his last five games, so he’s been almost unstoppable lately.